


Fathers

by sunryder



Series: Try Again [2]
Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types, DCU, Smallville, Superman (Comics)
Genre: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Community: trope_bingo, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-30
Updated: 2013-03-30
Packaged: 2017-12-06 23:54:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,361
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/741657
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunryder/pseuds/sunryder
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There is nothing that Lex Luthor wouldn't do for his son.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fathers

**Author's Note:**

> ETA 7/26/13: Re-read and fixed some flow problems and spelling issues. No important content was changed.

Lex found something psychologically satisfying in taking another Alpha to bed. And taking this particular Alpha would be a joy. 

 

The woman had arrived ten minutes late for their dinner, swanning in to the restaurant wearing a thigh-hugging skirt and heels so high that Hope could've used them as weapons. It was a juvenile thing to do, trying to establish her dominance over Lex through something so obvious as _clothing_. Lex was going to enjoy breaking her down and making her beg like an Omega in heat before the night was through. Genitalia wasn't what made you an Alpha, it was your state of mind. Which meant that despite all the woman's flamboyant tricks, by the time the main course was served Lex was the one in charge. He'd toy with her for a while longer (the pasta was excellent here), then take her home and seize the day. 

Of course, that just happened to be the moment Hope slid up beside Lex. She had his personal phone balanced in the tips of her fingers the same way she liked to hold a dagger. Her expression was placid, and that Lex could attribute an adjective to it at all meant she was concerned. 

Lex gave his date a placating smile then seized the mobile, devoting his whole attention to whatever problem had sprung up while he was out. 

Without Lex speaking, Charity had the sixth sense to know he had picked up. "Kon just arrived at the penthouse with Timothy Drake." Lex was up and away from the table before Charity finished Tim's name, uncaring about what justification Hope would give his date for his departure. Charity continued, "Mister Drake is in the early stages of shock. He's chilled and his pheromones are spiking. I believe it's the result of some kind of emotional trauma rather than an oncoming heat." 

Lex slid into the car Mercy had pulled around when Hope came to him with the call. He waited to speak until his phone gave the discrete buzz that meant the car was clear of all bugs and the Superman jammer was functioning. "How's Kon?"

"He's showing no feral tendencies to the presence of an Omega in distress."

That wasn't what Lex had meant at all, and Charity knew it. But the generalized response meant that the boys were in hearing range and she didn't want to say something that would set Kon off. Lex could hear Charity moving in the background and the gentle click of a door shutting behind her. "When he arrived he demanded that I ask you to return home as soon as possible." Which was the understated way of saying that Kon had burst through the glass doors of Lex's balcony, eyes red, and a stance so similar to his other father that Charity had probably reached for the Kryptonite knife she always kept strapped to her thigh. 

Lex allowed himself an instant of pleasure that when there was something wrong with his best friend, his son had come to him. Especially about a problem they had been working on for so long. Long before Lex had known that Kon was his son, he had known that Superboy wanted Robin. 

Lex had spent a few minutes laughing to himself about whether or not Clark's latest Kryptonian relation really knew that--despite the front Robin presented to the world and to the Justice League--the boy was really Tim Drake, an Omega. Then Kon had become his son, and it wasn't funny anymore. Because Lex knew what it was like to have everything in the world but the Omega you wanted. (And no matter what Clark's usually non-dynamic scent suggested, he was an Omega. Even Kon agreed.)

When Kon didn't bring up his attraction to Robin, Lex assumed that Clark's own Puritanical views on gender relations had rubbed off on their son, and that Kon believed an Alpha should only be attracted to Omegas, while Betas stayed with Betas. (And no, never once did it cross Lex's mind that Kon wasn't attracted to Tim. And based off Wayne's insistence that Kon stay out of Gotham, he saw it too.) 

Lex Luthor was not a man subtle with his affections, and what his son wanted, his son got. 

He began casually dropping hints about the identity of Batman, trusting that anyone with Lex's own genetics would be able to make the jump from Bruce Wayne to Tim Drake and from Tim Drake to Omega, thus circumventing whatever sexual restrictions Clark had placed upon Kon. When Kon missed all those hints, Lex moved on to several conversations about the little-known signs for telling that a person was hiding their true orientation. (This conversation was what had sparked Kon to mention, "Dude, is this about Clark and all his pent up Omega-ness?" which, while amusing, wasn't Lex's intention.)

Lex had finally gotten to the point where he just permanently left out a single page file that contained all the information Kon needed. But of course, Kon would never be so underhanded as to read through documents in Lex's apartment. 

After that, Lex gave up subtlety and began quietly began working on an aerosol that he could pass off to some minor league villain as a hallucinogen and get them to use it on the Teen Titans. In reality, the spray would degrade whatever industrial-strength concealing pheromones Tim was wearing so that Kon could get a genuine scent. 

However, before Lex could get the product through the trial phases, Kon dropped into his living room and moaned, "He's an Omega! Lex, I mean, not that I give a shit about him being a Beta, but how am I supposed to resist him now?" Lex had made noises like this was all new information to him and proceeded to spend the next several months giving Kon advice about how to treat Tim like an Omega without treating him like he was incompetent. 

Progress was slow, but every Sunday night Kon would stop by Lex's apartment on his way home after a weekend with the Titans, sharing some new indication that maybe Tim liked him. "Ya know Lex, like, _likes_ me, likes me." (Around the third time Lex sat through this same conversation with Kon and never once thought about offering to just hire him a prostitute to be done with it, Lex realized that he might actually like his son rather than tolerate him because he needed an heir.)

And now, when the world was tumbling in around him, Kon had come to Lex. It gave him no small amount of satisfaction. 

When Lex entered the apartment, Tim had been settled on the sofa and wrapped in the green duvet from Kon's bed. Red, blue, and yellow were all out, and Kon had declared purple a "girly color," which left Lex with a limited selection of the color wheel to decorate Kon's space). The boy was bundled up like a child, the blanket pulled over his head and Kon kneeling before him, with warm hands stroking up and down the line of Tim's arms. Lex tossed off his jacket and approached the boys, certain that his scent was close enough to Kon's that he wouldn't inadvertently plunge Tim deeper into whatever shock had gripped him.

Kon didn't even notice that Lex had arrived until Tim, as ever the best bred of the Bats, managed to give Lex a polite nod despite his insistent shivering. 

Charity wasn't wrong. Tim's scent was all over the place, but it wasn't the deep notes of an oncoming heat, it was emotional trauma, close to markers that came when an Omega lost their Alpha, but not quite. It was a smell Lex recognized from somewhere, and his instincts made him pause for a moment while his brain caught up. Then he remembered. That was the exact same scent that Clark had given off when Jonathan Kent died; it was the scent of an Omega who'd lost their Alpha parent. 

Lex dropped to his knees beside Kon and demanded, "What happened?"

Kon glowered at him for taking that sharp tone with Tim, but given that he'd spent most of his youth with Bruce in a snit, Tim responded well. The boy's pheromones dropped down, an Omega's instinctual grip on them tightening. Rather than prevaricate, Tim cleared his throat and murmured, "He has a son." 

Lex's mind spun for a moment, catching up to the reality that Bruce wasn't murdered someplace on Gotham's streets. A lifetime of practice kept Lex from sighing in relief (as convenient as it would be to have Bruce dead, not even Lex wanted to deal with the anarchy of Gotham without Bruce there to keep it restrained). Lex let some amusement seep into his voice and asked, "Who did Bruce get pregnant?" 

"Talia al Ghul."

A few rapid blinks were all Lex allowed to show of his surprise. "That's… insane. All those speeches Bruce gave Kon about gelding him if he touched you and he knocks up a villain?"

Tim flushed at the mention of Kon's attraction to him, and for the briefest of moments his scent flickered away from grief. Lex didn't have to look to know his son was mortified, but he knew that when things calmed down Kon would take the chance to parse Tim's reaction and be thrilled. 

Tim quickly regained control of himself and replied, "He was grown in an artificial womb with mitochondrial DNA. To perfect his genetics and overcome the both of them being Alphas." 

There was the slightest hesitation before Tim said the word "Alpha," and Lex understood what all this was about. "Ahh, Bruce Wayne has an Alpha son. Better to inherit is cowl and his company than the Omega boy he adopted."

Tim roughly cleared his throat. "So it would seem."

Now, if Lex Luthor was a good man, he'd ask Tim if that was _really_ what Bruce had said, or if Bruce had been an emotionally brain-dead, fool who didn't realize what he'd implied. It would invariably be the latter, and after a few days Bruce would stumble out an apology without actually using the word "sorry," and suddenly Tim would be back home in Gotham where Kon was not allowed. However, no one but Clark had ever accused Lex of being a good person, and now he only did that once a year when Lex inadvertently helped the Justice League save the world. (Only because it was financially profitable for him to be the person in control rather than some psychopath, not for any altruistic reason.)

So instead, Lex put one hand on Kon's back and rested the other gently on Tim's shoulder, psychologically pulling them together in a circle. "You're welcome here, Tim. For as long as you want."

There was power in that promise, power that Tim would see. There were few people on the planet who could protect him from the wrath of the Batman, and Lex was very near the top of that list. However, there was a reason that Tim Drake was meant to be Batman's heir. He looked at Lex with steel in his spine and no fear in his eyes and asked, "Why?"

Lex opened his mouth to reply, then paused, giving his response an extra air of honesty. "Once upon a time, I had a best friend whom I adored. It wasn't easy being my best friend, I'll admit, but in my defense, it wasn't very easy to be his best friend either." There was no way Tim didn't know Lex was talking about Clark, and judging by the sudden tension in Kon, somewhere along the way he'd figured out that his fathers had more of a history than just trying to kill each other. 

"For years we stuck together, powered our way through all his lies and all the people telling him I was dangerous." Tim had both the presence of mind and the gumption to quirk an eyebrow at that, and Lex gave the smallest quirk of a smile in appreciation. "All that time the only thing I wanted, the _only_ thing, was someone to be on our side. Some adult to say, 'I believe in you.' But it never happened, and neither one of us was strong enough to survive without it." 

Lex looked to Kon, who was staring back at him like Lex had just changed everything Kon thought he knew about this man he was just starting to trust. Lex pressed his palm to Kon's face, absentmindedly running his thumb along the line of a cheekbone exactly like Clark's, framing eyes that came straight from Lex. "The moment I knew Kon was mine I swore I'd do better by him than my father did by me." Lex leaned forward and put his hand to Tim's face the same way he had to Kon's. "You are my son's best friend," he said, with just the slightest pause before "best" so that Tim would know Lex implied other things. "I will protect you with every breath in my body." 

Lex didn't have to look at Kon to know his face had softened, that the boy was watching him with all the undisguised affection that he could never quite seem to contain. Tim looked hesitant, but Lex's words had the ring of truth to them (which they should, because as opportunistic as it may have been to share, Lex meant everything he said). Tim sat in stillness for a moment, obviously contemplating pros and cons with himself before he gave the slightest of nods. It wasn't enthusiastic consent, which only a fool would've expected, but it was progress. 

Kon wrapped his arms around Tim and the former Robin didn't even bother putting up a token fight against the affection. Lex slid away under the guise of giving the boys space to have their moment, but in truth, Lex needed a moment to himself to keep back his smile. Lex knew all too well what it was like to be denied the Omega you wanted, and if Lex played his cards right, that was a pain his son would never have to know. 

 


End file.
